What to do if your Poodle eats the cat poop

A reader recently asked me about What to do if your Poodle eats the cat poop.  Maybe you don't have a cat, but it's very common among pet owners with a dog and a cat.  Poodles and other dogs actually like to eat the cat's feces.  Apparently it has a high fat content and is somehow tasty to a lot of puppies and dogs.

Keeping our mini poodle out of the litter pan was a full time job for a while

When we first got our miniature poodle and she was a young puppy, she discovered that there were these strange "goodies" to be gotten out of the litter.  We kept trying to move the litter pan around and put a lid on it, but Lucy, being such a small poodle, she was able to get through the small opening.  There are reasons why dogs and poodles may be drawn to consuming cat feces.  Here's a possible explanation from The Dog Trainer website.

Why Do Dogs Eat Other Animals' Poop?

Cat feces probably attracts dogs because cat food is higher in fat and protein than dog food, and consequently cat feces is too. As for why dogs like horse and cow manure and goose droppings, your guess is as good as mine. Dogs like plenty of things we humans don’t – when was the last time you rolled in a dead squirrel, grinning your fool head off the whole time? My best guess is that dogs just plain find feces tasty.
Eating Feces Can Be a Sign of Illness

Not all coprophagy is normal or harmless.  Dogs who suffer from malabsorption syndromes, such as exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, sometimes eat stool, including their own. They may be trying recover the nutrients they can’t absorb in normal digestion.

Some horrible nutrition studies have been done on dogs; I’ll skip the details. Let’s just say that coprophagy might develop in a dog with a history of severe nutritional deficiency.(2)  “She’s eating a low-quality diet” is often thrown around as an explanation for a pet dog’s coprophagy, and maybe these studies are the ultimate source of that idea. I have to admit I’m a bit obsessive about my dogs’ food, but leery though I am of most commercial diets I sincerely doubt they’re anything like what the dogs in these studies got. All the same, if your dog eats her own and other dogs’ poop, and you’re buying the 50-pound sacks of whatever chow is cheapest at your local warehouse store, food of better quality might be worth a try.

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Our vet assured us that it wasn't anything to worry about and that Lucy was not going to get sick.
Although, he did say to try to discourage her from getting at the cat box.